Chapter 2 - The Man at the Door
Richard grabbed her arm before she reached the hallway.
Clara caught the doorframe with her free hand.
“Let go!”
Below them, the doorbell became pounding.
“Clara, answer me!”
Richard released her so abruptly she struck the wall.
He threw the belt onto the bed and pointed at the bathroom.
“Fix your face.”
Then he went downstairs, buttoning his shirt.
Clara followed him.
Every step hurt, but hiding had become more frightening than being seen.
Richard opened the front door only halfway.
“Thomas. She’s upset. We had an argument.”
Her father looked past him.
For one terrible second, nobody moved.
Thomas saw her swollen eye, her bare feet, the red marks around her arm.
His expression emptied.
Richard reached toward his shoulder.
“Let’s keep this between—”
“Don’t touch me.”
Thomas took out his phone.
His hand was steady.
“I need police and an ambulance,” he told the dispatcher.
Richard’s smile vanished.
“That’s unnecessary.”
“My daughter is injured.”
Clara reached the bottom step.
Her father stayed in the doorway instead of pushing past Richard.
“Can you come to me, sweetheart?”
Richard shifted into her path.
“She lives here.”
Thomas held the phone where Richard could see it.
“The dispatcher is listening.”
Something changed in the room.
The threat had acquired a witness.
Clara walked around her husband.
Outside, cold air touched her bruised face.
Her father removed his coat and held it open, waiting until she stepped into it.
“I thought you’d hurt him,” she whispered.
Thomas looked at the man framed by the beautiful front door.
“I thought about it.”
“Then I thought about you.”
When the officers arrived, Richard gave them an easier story.
She had slipped.
He had tried to help.
Her father disliked him and was making this ugly.
An officer asked Clara what happened.
Richard answered for her.
The officer raised a hand.
“I’m asking your wife.”
Clara could still feel his eyes pressing against her.
“He hit me,” she said.
The words sounded small.
She said them again.
“He hit me, and he wouldn’t let me leave.”
They separated Richard from her.
As a paramedic guided Clara toward the ambulance, Thomas asked whether she needed anything inside.
“There’s a paper in the bedroom. Near the bed.”
“We’ll tell the officer.”
She gripped his sleeve.
May you like
“Dad, it has your company’s name on it.”
For the first time that night, her father looked frightened by something he could not see.
